A's rally past Rangers on last day of season to claim division title

OAKLAND — A campaign that began for the A's with a trip to the Far East ended Wednesday with the team being crowned the best in the West.

The A's completed a three-game sweep and a run to remember by overcoming a four-run deficit with 11 consecutive runs in a 12-5 victory at the Coliseum. By winning, the A's avoided being a wild-card entry in the postseason. That designation now goes to the Rangers, the two-time defending American League champs who must now survive a one-game playoff to join the A's as one of four teams in the A.L. Division Series.

"It's going to take a whole lot of explaining to figure out how we did it," A's outfielder Jonny Gomes said. "At the end of the day, we scored more runs than they did."

Early on, it didn't appear that would be the case for the A's, who saw starter A.J. Griffin depart during a five-run second inning by the Rangers.

But the A's didn't give in, and with a six-run fourth that sent Rangers starter Ryan Dempster to the bench, they had the lead. The biggest play may have been one of the simplest, as Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton dropped a seemingly routine flyball hit by Yoenis Cespedes to allow the final two runs to score.

From there, the A's tacked on a single run in the fifth before Derek Norris' leadoff home run in the eighth sparked a four-run inning that put the game away. A's closer Grant Balfour finished off Texas — as he did in the previous two games in the series.

The victory gave the A's sole possession of first place for the first time all season. They had been tied for first after opening the season at 1-1 after two games against Seattle in Japan but didn't regain even a share of first until their victory over Texas in Game 161 on Tuesday.

"We're a comeback type of team and we never give up," A's outfielder Coco Crisp said. "We take each at-bat like it's the last one of our careers and we go out there and just play hard and whatever the results are going to be, we know that when we walk back into this clubhouse, we gave it our best."

The next step for the A's will be the Division Series, a best-of-five adventure which will begin for them Saturday or Sunday. Given that they have already defied the odds — many analysts had speculated that the A's would have a losing record — owner Lew Wolff is happy no matter what happens next.

"Nobody did," Wolff said when asked who might have foreseen the A's run to the division title. "But (General Manager Billy Beane) and his guys thought we would be competitive. And we weren't going to lose 100 games.

"I think all our guys are confident that every time they go out to play, they're going to win the game."

That confidence that Wolff alluded to comes courtesy of a roster built by Beane and his staff, a roster which overcame the absence of starting pitchers such as Dallas Braden, Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson as well as potential regulars including Scott Sizemore and Brandon Inge in addition to working with a payroll that was higher than just one other major league team.

And it came with a team that survived a nine-game losing streak and overcame an A.L. West deficit that at one point had the A's 13 games behind the Rangers.

"At that time, we hit a couple of injuries and we were just trying to get through," Beane said of the nine-game skid. "We had a couple of tough losses and you keep it in perspective. That's one thing I learned a long, long time ago. It's cliché, but you can't get too high or too low. And as soon as you start getting overly excited about one thing in June, you're going to find yourself in a different spot in a month. So we kept a pretty cool head during the season and I think that helped."

Crisp said it didn't matter that the team overcame doubters, only that the game ended the way the A's had hoped it would.

"It would have been sweet either way," Crisp said of winning as either an underdog or favorite. "Our belief from Day 1 is that we were supposed to be here in this situation."